Volume 3, Chapter 2: Kidnapping Incident①
After he killed Manzi, one of the Eight Sages in Barreira City, and destroyed his last regret and connection with Guiref’s Grimoire, Lambert kept moving from one city to another. He went from village to village to gain more information about 『Devil’s Piper』.
Naturally, he had no intention to overlook 『Devil’s Piper』 who tried to destroy Regios Kingdom.
He wanted to find their headquarters immediately and destroy it.
Lambert was riding on the back of a headless black horse; Nightmare was currently running across the steppe.
After hearing the strange rumor in the villages he dropped by along the way, he decided that his next destination was Kraan, a city within Viscount Le Gael’s territory.
Kraan was the biggest city in Viscount Le Gael’s territory. Even his mansion was built in this city.
But Viscount Le Gael’s territory was a poor territory. Even the biggest city in his territory, Kraan, wasn’t that good compared to other big cities.
There were so many orphans and vagrants in Kraan. In fact, the majority of the city was a slum.
The entire city was a lawless area, and Le Gael’s private army barely managed to control the situation.
Numerous corpses that looked as if they died in the most violent way with their bodies almost melted were found in the forest near Kraan.
Upon hearing that there was magic circle drawn on the skin of those corpses, the first thing that came to Lambert was the possibility of 『Devil’s Piper』 trying to experiment with forbidden magic such as necromancy.
‘It’ll be much better if their HQ is in this are—… Uhm?’
A carriage entered Lambert’s line of sight when he was pondering over those possibilities, and there was cavalry chasing after the carriage.
The cavalry group was composed of half-naked men holding spears or clubs in their hands.
There were five of them.
「Hahahaha! Don’t think that you can escape from us with that carriage!」
「Haha, run faster if ya ain’t wanna die! Gyahahahaha!」
The men jeered toward the carriage.
It was as if they were deliberately toying with whoever was inside the carriage.
‘Bandits, huh… it’s just as rumored, Viscount Le Gael territory isn’t that safe…’
Lambert pulled out his greatsword from its sheath and readied his stance.
「Nightmare, run a little bit faster. It’s time to go wild.」
Nightmare made a gesture as if it raised its non-existent head.
And yet, an eerie cry suddenly resounded out of nowhere.
「What the…? Hey, someone is coming toward us.」
「Want to disturb our fun, huh, very we— WHAT THE HELL IS THAT MONSTER!」
The appearance of a man wearing full-plate armor straddling on the back of a headless black horse was enough to make most people scared sh*tless.
「M-MONSTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!」
「RUN! THAT GUY IS DANGEROUS!!」
Lambert kept pursuing the bandits who were running away in unison.
Nightmare was crossbred by the finest warhorse when it was still alive.
Riding on its back was a super heavyweight called Lambert and his full-plate armor which couldn’t be handled by an average horse.
And yet, it was still fast enough to catch up with the slowest one amongst the bandits, who also got slapped with the blunt side of Lambert’s greatsword.
「UGHU?!」
That one strike was enough to make the bandit fall from his horse in a strange posture, breaking his waist, abdomen, chest, and head.
By the time the bandit stopped rolling, he had already met his maker.
「D-Darce— UGH?!」
Lambert’s greatsword struck the head of the second slowest bandit who turned around to see the situation.
Lambert didn’t stop swinging his greatsword. The third bandit got stabbed right in his back, destroying his heart in the process.
「Even a crowd of rabbits scatters around when they are chased by their predator.」
Upon hearing Lambert’s remark, the last two bandits nodded in silence and ran in two different directions.
Lambert quickly ran after one of them, slashed the horse of the bandit with a diagonal slash.
Meanwhile, the other bandit had already escaped far away.
「I-I DID IT! I-I SURVIVED…」
The last surviving bandit haved a sigh upon knowing that he survived.
But color drained from his face as soon as he heard the sound of hooves digging into the earth behind him.
「H-HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! S-SAVE M—」
His upper half flew away before he could even finish his sentence.
Thus, all five bandits died.
‘Let’s try to get some information about Viscount Le Gael from the owner of the carriage… But I guess it’ll be impossible if I approach with Nightmare. Moreover, Nightmare’s presence will bring fear to any normal person in this era.’
If those people were forced to say, rather than Nightmare, Lambert who was straddling on Nightmare’s back was in fact the real source of their fear. But no one mentioned that fact to him.
Lambert descended from Nightmare’s back and landed on the ground.
Nightmare left its master side as soon as the latter landed on the ground and vanished under the cover of the night.
Although it took a while for the horses that pulled the carriage since they got agitated after being chased around by the bandits from before, they finally calmed down and stopped moving.
Lambert then walked toward the stopped carriage.
「Hey, I have some questions for you guys…」
And then, a middle-aged man descended from the carriage to answer Lambert’s question.
「T-That was close… Normally speaking, I would thank you formally for chasing those guys away when we were about to be killed by them. I came here for peddling, but… to think that I would be chased around by those bandits when I arrived.」
The middle-aged man wiped his sweat as he spoke.
「 My name is Gansas. Even if I look like this, I think I have quite a lot of knowledge since I visited so many places.」
Gansas frowned and then looked around after he said those remarks.
「Hey… weren’t you riding a horse a while ago? Why don’t I see your horse now?」
「It’s a trivial matter. Now it’s my turn. Do you know about the lord of this territory, the one called Viscount Le Gael?」
Lambert forcefully changed the subject of the conversation.
「A-A-A…」
Gansas, who felt suspicious about Lambert’s behavior, had no choice but to nod and stop trying to dig more information from Lambert due to the latter’s bigger frame and awe-inspiring presence.